The story began with Apple’s acquisition of mobile ad platform, Quattro Wireless, back in Jan 2010. Soon after in April, the company announced iAd, a new interactive ad network for iOS devices. The network went live just last month. Interestingly, there has already been reports of the iAd platform, generating as much as $1400 in a single day.

“The emotion of TV, the interactivity of the web, the power of mobility” – this is how Apple defines the iAd. iAds can delivers interactive and video content ads without taking viewers out of the application they are currently using. The Toy Story 3 and other demo ads built by Apple beautifully illustrate the variety of interactive options possible.

Having said that, let’s look at the major ‘takeaways’ for the different segments.

For the average iPhone user:

• Mobile ads can be more enjoyable and less frustrating. Unlike in browser-ads, the user is not taken to a different web page and can get back to his current app easily and quickly.
• An iAd ad opens up in a app-like environment and taps into all major OS features of the phone. Users can therefore buy iTunes content from within the ad, share branded content across social networks or save branded images as wallpaper.

For the app developer:

• With 60% of the advertising revenue coming to them, developers might find it an interesting way to monetize their apps while keeping them free.
• Moreover, developers can purchase iAd advertising to promote their own apps to millions of users across the iAd Network. iAd JS and supporting documentation available through the iPhone Dev Center will aid developers in designing and creating high-impact, motion-rich ads.

For the advertiser:

• iAd holds immense marketing potential with its reach of over millions of iPhone and iPod touch users around the world.
• The kind of integrated experience the iAd promises could result in more viewer-ship and more effective advertising.
• Standard targeting options like demographics, movie and television genre interests, location, application preferences, etc., could mean the ad is delivered to consumers most likely to be motivated by the message.

And Finally For Apple:

• As the company that hosts and sells this new kind of ads, it is definetly a source of revenue.
• It is also a novel approach to incentivize App store development.

However, the biggest truth of all is that iAd is a subtle attack on Flash and a more direct strike at Google’s AdSense from the house of iOS devices.

Finally Google has arrived at the ‘Micro-blogging’ platform with a real ‘buzz’. On 9th February 2010, Google introduced ‘Buzz’, the new social networking application to embark on its battle to limit the popularity of Twitter. So, now there are lot of competitions going on in the Internet space. Google Vs Microsoft (Operating System & Enterprise Application Suits), Orkut (Owned by Google) Vs Facebook (Social Networking) Google vs Apple (Smart phone market). Before acquiring YouTube, they fought against them with Google Videos. So what we understand from all these competitions is that Google is not just targeting a niche or industry, rather it want to rule the entire IT Business.

At the first look, we may feel that Google Buzz is an integration of Facebook and Twitter, but it is beyond that. First and foremost advantage is that you don’t have to go to another web page to see the ‘buzz’, it’s there right below the inbox in  the Gmail. The conversation will go like an email thread which is the fascinating aspect of Buzz. You can post in the Buzz, which can be held as private or public. Also, you can connect your profiles in Flickr, Piccasa, Google Reader and Twitter to Buzz. That means you aren’t missing any of your friends and by start ‘Buzzing’, you are increasing your friend and professional network. See this wondeful Video of Buzz, to get more insights.

Now we can perhaps clearly say that it is now ‘Google Vs. Rest of the World’. Apple and Microsoft are companies that are worth more than  $ 100 billion each, Facebook and Twitter are the champs of their respective niche, though they are not monetizing it well. There is no doubt that the internet and enterprise software market will come under the reign of Google, which is not far away.